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It's always been a mystery to me why we have so few IITs. We should'e had by now at least 20+ around the country,in Tier-2 cities (if Calicut can have an IIM ,why not an IIT too?) as well. The greater the proliferation of institutions of excellence like IITs,IIMs, sponsored by the GOI,the easier it willbe for students to get the highest level of technical education at reasonable cost.

Philip wrote:It's always been a mystery to me why we have so few IITs. We should'e had by now at least 20+ around the country,in Tier-2 cities (if Calicut can have an IIM ,why not an IIT too?) as well. The greater the proliferation of institutions of excellence like IITs,IIMs, sponsored by the GOI,the easier it willbe for students to get the highest level of technical education at reasonable cost.

I have NO idea , why an institute has to be named "IIT" or "IIM" or "REC" or whatever for it to be "Excellent" . It is like arguing, why should there be only "one" Stanford, Harvard, CalTech, UC-Berkeley, UCLA , Cornell, Columbia, Princeton , ...........(fill in whatever you want here), let there be dozen of each!

If the idea is to mooch off the halo of the IIT grads of yesteryears and the reputation they have built, sure, why not just rename, every top college in every city.. You can have IIT- Baramulla to IIT -K(anyakumari) and IIT - D(warakaa) to IIT -B(ongaigaon) . Its crazy.

Just make sure, every college is good, standards are maintained high, focus is on academics , research and quality, each name will rise on it's own. Expanding the name IIT to everything is just a short cut/substitute for that hard work.

For e.g., until the early 50s, basically there were only TWO engineering colleges of repute . The College of Engineering - Guindy , and Thomson's College - Roorkee. Together they produced some really illustrious engineers and technologists of yesteryears. After the Dravidian parties and the "Reservation" business came to fully cry in TN (the focus was on keeping out a certain section of people , rather than on excellence ), college of Engg- Guindy was made a part of "Anna University" , it has been systematically WRECKED (add to that the sema - kutticheer kalvi nonsense , some huge amount of "toppers" admitted cant clear the basic 1st year courses, and think of it, not a single Brahmin has been allowed to be VC of Anna Univ iirc) . College of Engg - Guindy and IIT-M could have been rivals like Stanford and UC-Berkeley are in the Bay Area, both top class institutions , competing good naturedly and indeed fiercely in some areas , but NO, the panjandrums had to wreck Guindy Engg College for their dole/patronage/reservation/ politics.

Look at the state of the UVCE College campus in downtown Bangalore from Nrupathunga road. Its crazy and indeed pathetic. UVCE/Guindy College etc could be top places if they were allowed to become one and sanity prevails.

First step, they should just rename all the "new IITs" that the UPA-II govt came up with as Rajiv Gandhi , Sonia Gandhi Institutes (equal number of Rajiv & Sonia) and allowed them to come up, and not "name borrow".

I agree that certain institutions stand on their own merit,CMC Vellore for instance as a premier med. college/hospital in the country.Guindy Eng. College got merged into the Anna Univ.,its intl. reputation unknown to me. My point was why did the GOIs of the time not increase the number of state IITs across the country,at least one in every major state? IIMs have proliferated after IIM Ahmedabad,but not IITs. BITS Pilani has always has an excellent reputation.The fact is that education ahs been one of the lowest priorities of the nation.Aeons ago,a well-know Delhi journo (Tavaleen Singh) told me that when she asked Gujral,PM at the time,why he was not focussing on primary ed.,he laughed and said that didn't she know that "keeping Indians illiterate was the policy of every Indian govt. sine independence?

Philip wrote:It's always been a mystery to me why we have so few IITs. We should'e had by now at least 20+ around the country,in Tier-2 cities (if Calicut can have an IIM ,why not an IIT too?) as well. The greater the proliferation of institutions of excellence like IITs,IIMs, sponsored by the GOI,the easier it willbe for students to get the highest level of technical education at reasonable cost.

Money and priorities. Would you agree that IITs are a lower priority than AIIMS? And how many surgeons or doctors is the government training? Nowhere near enough.

Philip wrote:It's always been a mystery to me why we have so few IITs. We should'e had by now at least 20+ around the country,in Tier-2 cities (if Calicut can have an IIM ,why not an IIT too?) as well. The greater the proliferation of institutions of excellence like IITs,IIMs, sponsored by the GOI,the easier it willbe for students to get the highest level of technical education at reasonable cost.

The initial five were to be in five regions. The states were supposed to offer land for location. Andhra Pradesh CM was a curmudgeon and refused to offer land for the one in South India.

Newly integrated AP was backward and the idea was to locate a higher technical institute.

The CM later became a President.

Then Madras CM offered the land. Once agreed to, offered in Guindy reserve forest which was part of Governor's Bhavan anyway.

Later RECs were setup in each of the states but not in the Capital. The provision was half the intake has to be from all India with each state getting a quota based on their population.

In all these places the infrastructure for the first five years was non-existent and classes were held in nearby colleges or sheds.

Major tensions between SOS Rex Tillerson and US Ambassador to UN Nikki Haley, according to this piece by Dexter Filkins from the New Yorker. Seems that Tillerson is jealous of Haley for outshining him, particularly in light of her achievements re: North Korea sanctions.

The other challenge is North Korea. On its face, the confrontation seems like a prelude to war: North Korea’s leaders have vowed to develop a nuclear missile capable of hitting the United States, and Trump has vowed to stop them, by force if necessary.

Tillerson faces this crisis with a diminished diplomatic corps. Nine months into Trump’s term, he still has not named an Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and no Ambassador to South Korea has been confirmed. Susan Thornton, despite being rejected by the White House, has stayed on as the acting Assistant Secretary. An American official who visited northern Asia told me that some of the officials in the region who were most concerned with the crisis had largely stopped dealing with the U.S. Embassy, saying that it no longer seemed relevant. One Asian official said, “Why call the Embassy when the only thing that matters is what the President tweets?”

According to the senior Administration official, Nikki Haley, the U.N. Ambassador, is seen as the most effective diplomat in the crisis; twice she has rallied unanimous support for tighter sanctions at the U.N. Security Council, despite the members’ reluctance to discomfit China. “Nikki’s getting it done,” the official told me. “She’s bringing home the bacon.” This has apparently fed an enmity between Tillerson and Haley. “Rex hates her,” the official said. “He f****ng hates her.”

I wonder if this outright hatred has to do with more than jealousy. It looks like Nikki Haley is doing what needs to be done regardless of stepping on China's toes. Treating China in this way (unapologetically pushing US interests while not caring what Beijing might think) has long been considered sacrilegious from the State Dept's point of view (since Kissinger, Allbright, Clinton, etc. they have been dominated by Secretaries of State who are heavily invested in the "G2" paradigm, and this seems to have bled into the institutional thinking of the State Dept).

Moreover Tillerson has Exxon Mobil roots, and as part of Hamiltonian Corporate America (to which he might well return in future), he must be highly allergic to offending Beijing in any way. This could be the beginning of a new rift in US Foreign Policy schools of thought, between the Hamiltonian/Clinton-Wilsonian strategy of appeasing China, and the Trumpian Jacksonianism that says, essentially, f*** China and put America first.

However, there may be elements of straightforward jealousy too, see the following...

But the most significant achievement of Trump’s foreign policy—the tightening of economic sanctions against North Korea—was accomplished largely by Haley. The other major foreign-policy actions—renewing the commitment in Afghanistan, degrading ISIS—have been almost entirely military. For Tillerson, there seems to be a mismatch of means and ends; he has spoken as though the U.S. will remain as engaged in the world as it has been under previous Administrations, while proposing budget cuts that would make it very difficult to do so.

...

With hundreds of vacancies at State, the diplomat said, there is no “working level” to sort out problems. The diplomat recalled that some colleagues recently asked Tillerson for help with a national-security issue involving North Africa. Tillerson merely repeated Trump’s language of not getting involved, and so the diplomats went to Haley instead. “Something like that, North Africa—in this kind of Administration, there is not enough political interest,” the diplomat said.

Seems our Namrata Randhawa is quite an operator! SD diplomats are going around their boss, Tillerson, and asking Haley for intervention! Solid burnol-time for Rex.

Let's also remember that Rex Tillerson is from Corporate America. There is a very definite culture of Soft Racism in Corporate America... brown Indians and PIOs are elevated based on their competence, and they can even rise to CEO positions, but when the $hit hits the fan the white board members invariably offer the Indian up as a scapegoat. Remember when Vikram Pandit had to take the fall for Citibank. Also, when Raj Rajaratnam became one of very few hedge fund managers to actually be sentenced to jail time for roles played in the financial crisis.

Tillerson must really be chafing at a structure where he cannot benignly patronize the brown girl as his protege (and throw her onto the fire as a scapegoat when things go wrong)... but instead, is being upstaged by her at every turn!

It has more to do with TRex being an oil and gas executive and Nikki being a career politician. Please don’t bring Vikram Pandit or Rajaratanam into this. Those two were and are crooks. Their mistake was getting caught.

They may have been crooks. The reason they were "caught" while vastly greater numbers of white crooks (with equal or greater culpability) were not? Pretty obvious to anyone who looks.

Also, is the mere fact of Tillerson and Haley having different backgrounds (oil executive vs. career politician) enough to motivate public antagonism on this scale? There are plenty of instances in GOTUS history where people from corporate backgrounds and political or legal backgrounds have worked together without mutual antipathy.

Philip wrote:It's always been a mystery to me why we have so few IITs. We should'e had by now at least 20+ around the country,

Err...we do have 23 across the country!

So are they the top 23 instis.? Are the original five same as the eight ivy leagues? So what are the choices for the top 120 engg. schools, top 40 management schools, top 120 humanities schools for India (USA has a pop. of ~0.3 billion and India has a pop. of 1.2 billion so I scaled by a factor of four).

You will be hard pressed to come up with a list of good solid schools. 100% guaranteed. So stop being an academic elitist.

Mort Walker wrote:It has more to do with TRex being an oil and gas executive and Nikki being a career politician. Please don’t bring Vikram Pandit or Rajaratanam into this. Those two were and are crooks. Their mistake was getting caught.

Rajaratanam, I get it, but Vikram Pandit?? I was not aware of him being in the same bucket as Rajaratanam.

vina wrote:NYU is starting an engineering school again and it was an opportunity to get name on the building.

No it is not starting "an engineering school again". It has taken over Brooklyn Polytechnic (which became Polytechnic Univ. of NY). Brooklyn Poly is no slouch, really. One of my alma maters. So I might be a little biased there.

That said, I would rather that Tandons donated mere $10 million - $100K to 100 ITIs, not IITs, and $90 million to whoever they wanted. Those $10 million would have gone very far in providing for skill development of many many poor people and move up in life vs. the $90 million into basic research which would results 20 years later. Both are worthy causes, IMHO.

The idea was not elitist but spreading the reach of quality ed. provided by the state across the country which could be emulated by pvt. institutions like BITS,CMC,etc..Another mystery why we do not have sufficient medical colleges with students running off to the UKR,Russia,Mauritius,etc. for the same.It is a fact that huge bribes were demanded for pvt. med. colleges and those with political connections benefited most for setting up new ones.One of the few positive points about Demon., was the drop in donation demands,reportedly from 1cr. to 25 lakhs.I've seen first hand ho some institutions have ready envelopes stuffed with cash for visiting inspectors both from the govt. and inst. sides.Water will find its own level. Controlling education has been the bane of India.Those colleges,etc., with poor quality will find it hard to survive and close shop as their incompetence is widely spread by the student community.

This is about Indo-US relations. What further news of the court "Jester" appointed for India? Any info. on his thoughts on India,land of tigers,the taj (sorry,no longer in UP's tourist list!) and snakecharmers!PS:And of course the Delhi Belly.

Rudradev wrote:They may have been crooks. The reason they were "caught" while vastly greater numbers of white crooks (with equal or greater culpability) were not? Pretty obvious to anyone who looks. No. It's not obvious.

Also, is the mere fact of Tillerson and Haley having different backgrounds (oil executive vs. career politician) enough to motivate public antagonism on this scale? There are plenty of instances in GOTUS history where people from corporate backgrounds and political or legal backgrounds have worked together without mutual antipathy. And there are instances of infighting too.

Nikki is no real friend of India and converted for political expediency. Tillerson may not be any real friend of India either, but he is motivated by profit. I'll take Tillerson any day over Haley who is looking for a further political career.

Pandit was in charge of Citibank when it engaged in predatory lending practices, usurious loans and reselling loan packages. Citibank left a paper trail like others and Pandit wasn't the only one who resigned after the 2008 financial crisis. He didn't go to jail. Rajaratnam, Rajat Gupta, and Anil Kumar were busted for massively profiting from insider trading from 2009 SEC complaint. Gupta got 2 years jail and Anil Kumar none. If anyone who deserved a longer sentence was Gupta as he instigated Rajaratnam.

As far as white crooks vs. colored crooks argument goes. It's not valid because prosecutors like Preet Bahara and others are also career politicians looking to further their careers with being "tough on crime". Many US senators and governors were federal prosecutors at one time or another. An example is Chris Christie prosecuted Jared Kushner's father which caused a fallout with Trump. Given the chance, these guys will take anyone who leaves a paper trail to further their careers.

Mort Walker wrote:Nikki is no real friend of India and converted for political expediency. Tillerson may not be any real friend of India either, but he is motivated by profit. I'll take Tillerson any day over Haley who is looking for a further political career.

I don't disagree with that (it was also not the point of my post, or of the article I quoted from, which simply referred to a public rift between these two individuals.)

Indeed, quite possibly Nikki Haley would be even less friendly to India than Tillerson precisely BECAUSE of the Preet Bharara effect. Brown PIO Americans of a certain stripe, particularly if they have been EJ'd, feel virtually compelled to show their "true colors" (inner whiteness) by being extra-vindictive against the people and/or land of their roots.

Pandit was in charge of Citibank when it engaged in predatory lending practices, usurious loans and reselling loan packages. Citibank left a paper trail like others and Pandit wasn't the only one who resigned after the 2008 financial crisis. He didn't go to jail. Rajaratnam, Rajat Gupta, and Anil Kumar were busted for massively profiting from insider trading from 2009 SEC complaint. Gupta got 2 years jail and Anil Kumar none. If anyone who deserved a longer sentence was Gupta as he instigated Rajaratnam.

Theek hai. I certainly don't think these guys were angels. But the fact remains they were a micro-minority amongst the thousands of people on Wall Street who did similar, or worse things. Yet, when offenders of a certain ethnicity are prosecuted or punished with great alacrity while very many more offenders of a different ethnicity walk scot-free, the implication is obvious to more people than some might want to admit.

As far as white crooks vs. colored crooks argument goes. It's not valid because prosecutors like Preet Bahara and others are also career politicians looking to further their careers with being "tough on crime". Many US senators and governors were federal prosecutors at one time or another. An example is Chris Christie prosecuted Jared Kushner's father which caused a fallout with Trump. Given the chance, these guys will take anyone who leaves a paper trail to further their careers.

Bharara is an example of precisely why it IS valid! See above. As a prosecutor with political ambitions, the guy wants high-profile convictions. He also wants the majority white vote, which means he must (1) show how he is not "biased towards his own ethnicity" (2) avoid going after well-connected and influential white people in the numbers mandated by their scale of participation in the financial crisis. This cannot be compared to a situation where the antagonists (like Christie and Trump) were of essentially the same ethnicity.

Nikki Haley would be good for India precisely because she will see through machinations of Pakistan and China and read their bluffs correctly. She may not be effusively praising India, but will be useful where it matters the most.

For all his India friendliness, Tillerson can be taken for a ride by Paki and Cheen.

Mort regardless I support Nikki Haley for Secy of State as that's #3 for an Indian origin person.Also she made it a point to visit NaMo and his Madison Square Garden speech.So comparison to Preet Bharara is unwarranted.

Also Democrat supporting Indians have been quite bad for India.

-------------The Rajaratnam gang got it for being over exuberant and ostentatious display of success.Not one of the bank fraud guys got their just rewards.

Agreed.I want our desi kids to aspire to higher office as the second generation achieves more soft skills and builds on financial base built by first gen.More in higher office and lees in coolie offices!!!

"I have two questions, one on the goodwill visit of the First Lady. It looked like from the visit that she's representing well the United States and the President. She's very charming and friendly and outgoing. My question is here that there's an old saying there's always a great woman behind a successful man. How the President take this?"

http://foreignpolicy.com/2010/06/07/can-the-white-house-revoke-a-reporters-credentials/Another unusual fixture is Indian journalist Raghubir Goyal, who reports on the White House for the India Globe, a publication whose website contains no content. Goyal is known for asking lengthy questions about India policy, particularly on Kashmir, no matter what else is going on in the world.He became known as "Goyal the Foil" during the Bush administration because of Press Secretary Scott McClellan’s habit of calling on him when facing tough questions from other reporters. Goyal recently raised some eyebrows by asking Gibbs about the Obama administration’s stance on yoga.

There's no more prestigious post for a Washington journalist than to be a member of the White House press corps.

But oddly enough, it isn't just the big network and newspaper hotshots who occupy the coveted seats in the White House briefing room. The real characters there are people like Raghubir Goyal.

Not familiar with that byline? Well, it's not clear anyone is.

Goyal, as he's known, is the Washington correspondent for the India Globe. But you won't find his stories online. The link to his Web site doesn't work, and as Washington Post researcher Alice Crites discovered, there are no stories written by Raghubir Goyal on either Nexis or Factiva.

Still, for decades, on a daily basis, Goyal has shown up in the briefing room with his hand up, usually to ask about U.S. policies toward India and Pakistan. (Once he brought a basket of mangoes for Tony Snow to deliver to President Bush.)

His questions are almost always off topic and rarely, if ever, produce news. (As he says in the video, "I can't go with the flow every day.")

Goyal - a very nice and pleasant guy, by the way, who often extends "greetings" on behalf of his entire country, has been hanging out at the White House since the Carter administration. But his free pass to the hottest history-making spot in town could soon itself become a thing of the past.

Countering Chinese grand designs with closer ties with the US,japan,etc. is all very well,but how reliable are they as partners? Let's take the ME and Afghanistan.There,the US has hunted with the hounds and run with the hares,supporting all manner of ungodly Islamic jihadi elements to support the grand strategy of the US and its Arab allies led by the Saudis,who have only one goal-the expansion of Wahaabi Islam across the globe. Despite all its separate and combined might,the US and its Sunni allies failed miserably to unseat Assad in Syria.With the support of his people,totally opposed to the hideous monster of ISIS,Russian firepower provided by Putin has blown ISIS away as well as the US -led alliance and its "rebel" forces!Strategically,this is as humiliating a US foreign policy defeat in the ME just as it was in Indo-China with defeat in the Vietnam War.

Thus far,all that the US has managed to do in Korea is bluff and bluster. No doubt the US can roast NoKo like a weekend barbecue fry-up,but the collateral damage from whatever NoKo can throw at it and its allies close by,SoKo andJapan (is history going to repeat itself with another N-strike against Japan?) are nightmarish of the nuclear kind. When it comes to China,the US simply backed off when China started occupying the atolls and islands in Mischief Reef and has allowed the Spratlys to be taken over by China,who swiftly turned them into bristling mil bases. To expect the US to come running to our aid if the Chinese invade India from the north would be delusional.India will have to fight its wars itself,all alone. What the US really wants is to scaremonger india into buying billions of US arms to fatten the bellies of US arms manufacturers and to have by default,a huge mil. force in India armed with US weaponry that can be networked and controlled by the US in any major conflict.India would also become a US mil base with the US and its naval and air force,operating out of Indian bases and ports under the various one-sided agfreements that it is trying to get us to sign for its has-been milware.

In all our engagement with the US and its established mil. allies,there are limitations which we must never forget.We must remember that when the sh*t hits the fan,no one will come running to assist us ,joining forces. Neither must the US expect us to come running if they start a spat with China on their own. We cannot afford to get sucked into fighting another White man's war.We did so during WW1,WW2 sending millions of Indians to fight for imperial Britain.Do we want to become a colonial lackey yet again?

Philip wrote:Countering Chinese grand designs with closer ties with the US,japan,etc. is all very well,but how reliable are they as partners? Let's take the ME and Afghanistan.There,the US has hunted with the hounds and run with the hares,supporting all manner of ungodly Islamic jihadi elements to support the grand strategy of the US and its Arab allies led by the Saudis,who have only one goal-the expansion of Wahaabi Islam across the globe.

In contrast to Russia's principled stand against the Saudis and their allies.

Fact is, every nation looks out for its own interests - and those of India, US & Japan converge on China. Some folks may see any form cooperation with the great Satan as lackeyism but at no point has India compromised its core strategic interests (which BTW are different from Russia's).

Viv S wrote:Fact is, every nation looks out for its own interests - and those of India, US & Japan converge on China. Some folks may see any form cooperation with the great Satan as lackeyism but at no point has India compromised its core strategic interests (which BTW are different from Russia's).

You are so wrong there. The IUNCA was a CLEAR compromise and its costs was paid entirely by our strategic assets, leaving India with a less than credible arsenal due to non testing. So, is the pressure to sign the foundational agreements. Every so called "Strategic Partnership" agreement with the US is in effect a compromise for India and a loss for our strategic and independent evolution and growth. China does not sign strategic agreements with the US. It signs SCO and OBOR agreements with others - where China is the first amongst equals, the US will play no part as it does not even with that Asian bank thing. In the world I come from "partnership" is another name for - not being able to do some things on your own. Which is what is needed some times, but we should be very, very clear on what partnership means for India. It is in effect a loss or an admission that India cannot do it on its own.

"You are so wrong there. The IUNCA was a CLEAR compromise and its costs was paid entirely by our strategic assets, leaving India with a less than credible arsenal due to non testing. So, is the pressure to sign the foundational agreements. Every so called "Strategic Partnership" agreement with the US is in effect a compromise for India and a loss for our strategic and independent evolution and growth."

Non-testing was due the fact we could not afford (financially) to alienate the US during the 1970s. Thanks to IG and the INC, we were living hand to mouth with about 3 months of FX reserves for imports during the 1970s and down to about 1 month in 1991. Keep in mind our FX reserves were $18bn in 1998 after Pokhran and the sanctions did not bite as hard as they would have earlier.

I still fail to grasp what this 'strategic and independent evolution and growth' or 'strategic space' actually is. Can you please describe a plausible scenario?

The 'Foundational Agreements' are not coercive (if you feel otherwise, please do cite clauses that 'restrict'). We don't have to sign them if we are prepared to forego latest tech. Nowhere do they compel us to go to war with the US nor do they compel the US to come to our aid if get in a fight with the PRC.

Strategic partnerships with the US/Japan are a means to force PRC to spread it resources thin so they can't pick us off in isolation. These are not alliances. An alliance is what we entered into in 1971 with the USSR.

And, no, we cannot take on the PRC alone except with nukes. They have quantity, quality, economy and will. They are a force to be reckoned with and guess who built them up? Then google "Zelikow India".

ShauryaT wrote:You are so wrong there. The IUNCA was a CLEAR compromise and its costs was paid entirely by our strategic assets, leaving India with a less than credible arsenal due to non testing.

India retains its right to test nuclear weapons, and the US retains its right to re-examine the agreement in the event of a test. Its pretty much business as usual.

All the agreement did was serve up a weak excuse, blaming India's unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing (which long predates the IUCNA) on unrelated factors.

For the record, India's arsenal is sufficiently credible for its purpose i.e. deterrence under a NFU doctrine. China or Pakistan's foreign policy and/or military posture isn't going to change an iota in the wake of a third round of testing.

So, is the pressure to sign the foundational agreements.

Other than resulting in err.. emotional stress, such pressure is meaningless. All that matters is what's actually done and nothing that India has signed has compromised its core strategic interests.

Every so called "Strategic Partnership" agreement with the US is in effect a compromise for India and a loss for our strategic and independent evolution and growth.

A blanket statement like that suggests an ideological position (akin to our Communist parties) more than a reaction to any specific clause of the agreement. India has signed 'Strategic Partnerships' with Russia, Japan, UK, France, Australia, Brazil, Vietnam, the list goes on including.. surprise surprise China.

The obvious inference ought to be that the phrase 'strategic partnership' is all but meaningless. Unless, of course, its signed with the US, in which case it mysteriously amounts to a tangible loss of sovereignty.

China does not sign strategic agreements with the US. It signs SCO and OBOR agreements with others - where China is the first amongst equals, the US will play no part as it does not even with that Asian bank thing. In the world I come from "partnership" is another name for - not being able to do some things on your own. Which is what is needed some times, but we should be very, very clear on what partnership means for India. It is in effect a loss or an admission that India cannot do it on its own.

Hasn't stopped China from pursuing it a genuine strategic relationship with Russia. Hardly surprising considering they have common ground in terms of their relations with the US. Nobody's interpreting that as a loss of independence or admission of inability to pursue their objectives independently.

Mr. Obama, who was the first president to celebrate Diwali personally at the White House in 2009, talked about this momentous occasion in a Facebook post soon after he kindled the diya in his Oval Office with some Indian-Americans working in his administration.

“I was proud to be the first President to host a Diwali celebration at the White House in 2009, and Michelle and I will never forget how the people of India welcomed us with open arms and hearts and danced with us in Mumbai on Diwali,”

On behalf of the entire Obama family, I wish you and your loved ones peace and happiness on this Diwali,

“To all who are celebrating the festival of lights across America and around the world, happy Diwali. As Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, and Buddhists light the diya, share in prayers, decorate their homes, and open their doors to host and feast with loved ones, we recognise that this holiday rejoices in the triumph of good over evil and knowledge over ignorance,”

“It also speaks to a broader truth about our shared American experience. It’s a reminder of what’s possible when we see beyond the differences that too often divide us. It’s a reflection of the hopes and dreams that bind us together,